S1EP05 - Let's Not Be Curled Up on the Floor with Kaitlin Christine

This is The Capital Flex. I'm Naseem Sayani. This show codifies the capital playbook because no founder should have to learn the hard way. We talk about what really happens behind closed doors, the bias, the breakthroughs, and the things no one says out loud. If you've ever walked into a room and felt the system wasn't built for you, you're in the right place. Hi and welcome to The Capital Flex. My guest today is Caitlin Christine. She's She's a breast cancer survivor, ovarian cancer previvor, and the CEO and founder at Gabi. Gabi is a technology solution powering early detection insights to help women understand their risk profile when it comes to breast cancer. The business partners with health systems, employers, and providers to assess risk and get women to the right care quickly. Caitlin has been at this for a while and she's earned some incredible accolades while doing it. She was the Oregon Entrepreneur of the Year in 2021. She was Inc.'s top female founder in 2023. She was Rock Health's top digital health disruptor also in 2023. Fierce Healthcare's top innovator in 2023 as well, and recognized by the White House for the inaugural Cancer Prevention Month in 2024. And she now sits on the leadership board of the United States Breast Cancer Early Detection Coalition. I had to share all of that because it's incredible and we don't often share all the accolades, so I wanted to make sure I said all of it.

You're right, actually. It's true. It's true.

So Caitlin and I met a few years ago and I was in instantly intrigued by everything she was building. We had a few great conversations and I jumped in as an angel investor, and we've been great friends ever since. And so thank you so much for joining the pod today, Caitlin. I'm so happy you're here.

Thank you for having me, Naseem Sayani. When you reached out with this whole thesis, I was just honored to be included and really excited to, to be part of the FLEX podcast. Thank you.

So for everyone listening, if you could please just introduce yourself a little bit more and tell us, give us one or two more sentences on Gabby.

So my name is Caitlin Christine. I'm the CEO and founder at Gabi, and I started Gabi out of a personal need, truly, after losing my mom to a delayed diagnosis of breast cancer and then experiencing my own delay in diagnosis of breast cancer shortly after my mom passed. And so Gabi is really an effort to solve what happened to my mom, what happened to me, and so many other families across the country. And that is to ensure that every woman knows her risk and has access to early detection. And so the way we do that is really twofold. First, we assess your risk in less than 2 minutes, and then second, we connect you to a care team, to clinicians who now, informed by your risk, will design a care plan based on your risk level and can actually order that care, really acting as your breast health guide up to a diagnosis, should there be one, and ensuring that if there is one, it happens at the earliest life-saving stages.

Oh, it's incredible. It's so smart and it's so needed because we hear so many stories later stage and/or after something bad has already happened and we just have to make all of that so much better. So I appreciate everything that you're doing.

Thank you. Well, that's exactly right. I mean, I am a firm believer that the cure to cancer is early detection because specifically with breast cancer, when it's caught early, the survival rate is 99%. Yeah.

Isn't that incredible? It's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. So as you know, the basis for this pod is to take the Whisper Network and start to say everything out loud. Fundraising for female founders is extremely hard. Uh, I get a ton of stories that come my way on, of course, good things when the check comes through, but I get a lot of the hard stuff, insane situations, weird dynamics, unfortunate outcomes. I wanted to shed more light on those stories and really make them real and talk about them out loud and talk about how we approached it in the moment. And when we look back, how we want to approach them the next time. And turn the series into a toolkit for other founders when they listen, that they are better prepared and can walk into these rooms where we know crazy is happening and be much better prepared for it. So if you could, to start us off, if you could think back on your fundraising experience, if you could use 3 words to describe that experience, what 3 words come to mind?

So many words come to mind.

Oh, I know. That's the problem. Yeah.

Not to break the rules immediately, but I, when people would ask me, oh, how's fundraising going? Oh, how's fundraising going? I would always say I spend a lot of time on the floor. And so I guess instead of 3 words, I'm gonna give a visual. And that is like just laying prostrate or in child's pose on the floor multiple times a day, almost after every pitch, after every investor call of really just trying to ground myself and, and give, you know, affirmations to myself, but also bang my head against the wall being like, why? Why am I still doing this? Why is this so hard? So I guess I would just give that visual of it. It was a lot of laying on the floor of, of banging my head against a wall and, and then choosing to get back up and do it again.

And keep going because the mission was too important and the opportunity's too big. So give us a little bit more underneath that.

Why?

What were maybe one or two examples of why that dynamic happened so often? What, what was happening in the experience?

Yeah, I think maybe the first thing, and, and I won't gender this, this one at first, is that almost every founder who's raised capital that I've talked to has a number, the number it took to get to the first yes, and With few exceptions, it is always a number that's over 70. And so I think the first part of it is just, and, and maybe I'll go back to like getting on the floor and banging my head against the wall, is, is it's hitting your head against the ground over and over again because you have to give that pitch and you have to meet and wow over 70 people in order to get to the first yes. Now one could argue, you know, a positive way to spin that is great. The more nos you get, the closer you're getting to that first Yes. And trust me, like during that, that whole fundraising process, I'm absolutely telling myself that. But the reality is that you have to pitch at least 70 people before you get to that first yes. So I think the, the first thing in response to your question is just, it's the numbers game and forcing yourself to hear no over 70 times and choosing to get back up and hear it again in order to get to that first yes.

And the grounding in that to not take it personal over and over and over again is, it's heavy. That's a lot.

It is. And I think for, you know, as a first-time founder, I think back to the first capital I raised, which was a pre-seed round. We've since raised 3 additional rounds since then.

Congratulations.

Thank you. Thank you. But I didn't know that. And so I felt like when I was raising my pre-seed round, I felt like I was having an existential identity crisis. Because I'm subjecting myself to being told no so many times while also questioning my value and my self-worth and what I'm doing, investing, you know, like spending all this time quitting my job and working on this company and not getting paid and hearing no and still having to keep going. So I think, I mean, an aspect of growth for me personally has been that I don't feel as much of an existential crisis being told no over and over again as I've continued to raise capital. There's definitely still an aspect of it there, but that first time was really, really hard on me. Emotionally and personally about who I am and my value and my identity because of that. I'd never done anything like that before.

Yeah, it's tough. It's tough because you have to really build some almost calluses so you get used to it and you can respond to it differently.

I do. I think it's a muscle.

Yeah, it's a muscle. Were there certain things that were coming up in the nos? Were there like moments of disbelief or, or scenarios that were especially interesting in some of those nos?

Yes, I think. Maybe that leads to the second point is, and I, I would generally gender this, is, you know, how specific what we're doing is related to women's health. Yes, I would say the astute male investors are able to acknowledge, I have a mom at a bare minimum, and I have a grandma, and at least think with that lens of like, oh, I wonder how this impacts them. Does it impact them? However, outside of that, the norm was me just having to spend so much time educating male investors on how early detection, how detection of breast cancer happens, the norms around the age demographics, the norms around risk being assessed, how cancer progresses, the, the need and how it's done today that I felt like I had to spend a disproportionate amount of time educating investors in order to then start talking about the business opportunity that at that point, not only have I wasted my time because what's the likelihood that they're actually going to understand and get educated to a point that gets them to want to write a check? I mean, unlikely, truly. I mean, if we think about biases out there, just like in sales, you work with people that you enjoy working with implies that there has been some kind of relationship built there. And if I'm having to educate you on not only the problem, but just how this works to begin with, it's unlikely that you're ever gonna get to the point where you say, hey, I'd like to write a check.

Well, this is a dynamic that exists across all of women's health, and the way I like to describe it is you spend 25 minutes of a 30-minute call teaching biology, and then you spend 5 minutes on the solution, and you don't— you can't get a check in 5 minutes. And so there's so much education we all end up doing. And in other scenarios, you spend 30 minutes on the solution because there's some existing knowledge, uh, and it's a huge hurdle for the whole category. Yeah.

And I think because of that, we see that it takes longer for women's health companies to get to market and really get traction because in a way, we are all part of creating the category and each of the individual, let's just call them sects within women's health because there are so many aspects of women's health. We are all blazing the trail, creating that sect within women's health, and therefore it takes so much more time because we're having to educate everyone on the need.

This episode is brought to you by 51and. As an investor, I've seen a lot of big ideas in healthcare, but nothing as ambitious or as necessary as 51and. 51and is a national movement powered by you. Together, they're building a $900 million annual funding engine to fill gaps in research, drive policy change, elect candidates, fuel innovations, and finally build a foundation women's health deserves. For just $100 a year, you become a Catalyst member, fueling change while also getting value back. That means discounts on women's health products and services, access to exclusive tools and content, invitations to events, and the knowledge that you are actively reshaping the future of healthcare. This isn't charity, it's power at scale and an investment in change that gives back to you. Join them today at 51and.com. That's 51and.com. Right. No, absolutely. And was there— so the lived experience is an important part of crossing, you know, the, the chasm, so to speak, in healthcare. Was there a difference between male investors, and we'll stick with them for a moment, we'll get to female investors in a minute, but male investors who had women around them who had gone through breast cancers versus men who didn't have women around them who had gone through breast cancer?

Yes. Yes and no. One of the most meaningful first checks I ever received was out of a family trust for the— it was a husband and wife. It was her mom who died of ovarian cancer, which is linked to breast cancer. And the trust was money that she had left her daughter and son-in-law, and they wrote a check out of that trust to Gabby in our pre-seed round. And to me, that was so meaningful because it was this legacy of this family member who they had lost to a delayed diagnosis of, of cancer. And that's actually the only one I can think of top of mind who has had, I, let's just call it like immediate family member with breast cancer. What's been really interesting is there are so many men on our cap table who actually haven't personally been touched by breast cancer. And let's again, just say an immediate family member. But they do have a mom, a grandma, they have a wife, and in some circumstances they have daughters. And they were at least willing to be educated and open to being educated and understand, and then were able to connect the business opportunity and just generally have been really huge advocates of women and women's health. And they were They were some of the easiest actually. I think it was just like the openness to learning and the understanding of, oh wow, this could really affect someone that I really love. I'm gonna pay attention and learn at a bare minimum. Different from, I, let's just call it the typical male investor who, and I'll give an example, I will never forget a diligence call was with a, a large angel group. And, you know, we had made it to IC and it was IC and there were like 20 people in that call from this angel group. And it was me and our data scientist. And it was 19, about 19, basically there was only one woman from the angel group and the rest were all men. And, you know, we've gotten to IC, so there has been some acknowledgement through whatever process that they've created. That there is a business case here that is worth considering investment in. And yet the questions that were allowed from the male investors as part of this angel group were honestly kind of insulting. And one gentleman chimes in saying, I don't really understand how this got to IC. This can't be a problem. My wife had breast cancer and it was found early and she's fine.

Holy smokes.

And I mean, what do you, what do you say to that?

Flat deny the entire opportunity. Right.

And so actually it was the one woman who had not really said much to this point chimed in and, you know, was essentially like, hey Bob, that wasn't the situation for my sister. And I don't know what I would've done had she not chimed in essentially saying, Bob, that's not always the case. Not to mention, let's just think about the demographic of an investor is not the demographic of the average American either. So there was like this lack of acknowledgement about the, the lived experience, lack of acknowledgement about the problem at large, and a lack of acknowledgement about that it could be a problem that affects other people, maybe not him.

Right. And an unwillingness to learn more about what could be done differently and that his wife's lived experience maybe could have been different, better handled a completely different way. And maybe early detection would have made her experience easier.

Right. Or, or even with what he had shared, maybe she's one of the lucky ones, but that there are so many other unlucky ones and there's the opportunity. And so it was just being met with a lot of scenarios like that of being told there there's no, there's no opportunity here. There's, this isn't really a problem. And having to educate on the problem. Now, I will say something that was deeply gratifying was also another angel investor who has only worked in healthcare, which I will say was a big learning for me, is not pitching generalist funds, was shifting to only pitching healthcare because I had to spend less time edu— I still had to educate, but I did have to spend less time educating because at least I wasn't having to educate on the American healthcare system. System.

Oh, sure.

So, so going after—

that's a, that's a, that's a high learning curve.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this particular angel investor, he had only worked in healthcare, only invested in healthcare, and was introduced by another angel. And he initially, from our first meeting, was like, you know, I really, I really just don't see the market here. I think there's already there. And I worked really hard to, over time— and I think it took 2 months or something— to over time win him over. And he ended up writing a check. And that's one where I really I remember that and always bring it up to him on how I convinced him to invest when he said there wasn't an opportunity here. And that I'm very proud of that I did that.

Yeah. Yeah. It's great. You, when you get them past the line, you go, well, you remember when I first met you, you weren't quite there. And now look, look how far you've come. Isn't it amazing?

Yeah.

Yeah. So you mentioned your data scientist was in that angel room with you, and I'm curious because I hear stories about disbelief in the tech or just when There are so many smart women in technology, and yet when we say the words, people don't believe us. And sometimes those people have less experience than we do. How has your data scientist experienced fundraising and/or the, the world that is VC?

Yes. I mean, so when you first asked me to be on this podcast, I reached out to her and I proceeded to get pages of notes. And finally she was like, I'm so sorry, this is really working me up. And, and, and she had remembered some things that I didn't remember, but I had her, when we got to a certain point in diligence, especially the first time we raised capital, actually both times, she would come in and, and have to really talk about our IP and, you know, what is our IP and our moat. And what she particularly remembers, and I remember, I remember this too now, was that it would be some finance guy who maybe took a course, maybe, in machine learning in college, but likely just read a Wikipedia page, who is asking questions about our model and, you know, how many datasets and how many features. And we'd say things like, well, don't you think that you would want to have more features than that? Don't you think that you need to find more data? And all these just really kind of derogatory and pejorative comments and questions where where she was like, yes, of course, in the ideal world, yes, we would like more features. Yes, of course, we would like more data. But you know what? As it stands right now, we happen to have created this model with more data than any of the other models. Oh, by the way, that have been used for decades. And so we actually don't see it as a problem because ours is already better than these and it uses more data and it's more diverse. And so she was having to do all this explaining. And of course, while keeping composure, because God forbid you say, hey, you know what, dude, that's a really dumb question.

Right.

Right.

Because you can't get worked up.

Right. You can't, you can't. And so I think she, she would leave those calls and afterwards call me. And honestly, I felt the same way when I was talking about the business afterwards, just feel like I was an idiot. And, and they made her feel dumb too. And keep in mind, she has a PhD in machine learning. She has worked for some of the highest regarded, like, biomedical research labs in the country. And at the end of these calls, being asked by some guy who read a Wikipedia page about machine learning at the time, you know, we're talking like 2019, 2020, 2021, before AI went gangbusters, who's making her feel dumb by the end of the call.

These things are, it's mind-blowing, right? Because you, if she were not female and she were male, 100%, that wouldn't happen.

I completely, I completely agree.

It would be jovial call. They would be laughing and joking, talking about machine learning, and the other side would be asking questions and, and learning from this PhD in machine learning versus trying to poke holes in the whole thing.

I like to liken it to like female founders have to go through a colonoscopy when it comes to diligence, whereas men just have to like bend over and cough. Men get a prostate exam, we get a colonoscopy. Now maybe men would say, hey, I'd prefer the colonoscopy over the prostate exam, but I mean, this is healthcare we're talking about here. But I mean, you know, it's like the, the different— we have an invasive experience and they just really have to show up and Yep.

Now, so what is the, when you fundraise the next time, what's a different way to prep for that kind of call?

So I think as I've become more seasoned in fundraising, a big learning for me was, you know, everyone says you need to drive the process and run a process, a fundraising process. What I would add to that is that also includes setting the tone and the expectations of what you will and will not entertain. and, and I do think it really only comes with experience. As a first-time founder, there's no way the first time I raised capital, I would've said, you know what, sir, I'm gonna stop you right there. That's really not an appropriate question or a, a helpful question. What you should be asking is— there was no way I was going to drive meetings and pitches and diligence that way as a first-time founder. But now what I would say is that's absolutely what I will do. And you know, the moment If, if I send pre-read materials and in the first 5 minutes I learned you didn't read them, hey, you know what, Naseem Sayani, sounds like you haven't been able to prepare for this meeting, so why don't we plan reconnecting when you're able to prepare and stop the call. And I think just realizing that I deserve just as much respect as they do, and they need to show me that in order for me to want to continue that diligence process.

Right, right. And to have a productive call. Otherwise you are exactly not going to get as far as you need to go in that call.

Because like, I mean, let's be real, when we're fundraising, and especially because still today so much fundraising can be done virtually, when a founder's fundraising, I mean, you are in back-to-back-to-back investor calls. And absolutely, I would like my 30 minutes back if you're gonna waste my time. And if we flip that on the other side, an investor is also in back-to-back pitches, and I'm sure they'd like that time back to not have to stare at a computer screen and meet another company that's pitching them. And so let's just all agree that we're gonna come prepared to the conversation. So I, I use that just as an example of something that I would do now is just really be more confident in driving the conversation and not saying, no, I'm not taking your money necessarily, but my expectation, if we're gonna continue having these conversations about us working together, is that you come prepared just like I'm coming prepared.

Right, right. Absolutely fair. And I think that also it takes practice and it takes, and it does take experience. You have to really feel comfortable showing up that, that way with investors because there is a power dynamic. Also researching those investors and having a good sense of fit with the kind of investor you want in your cap table. Because I, I do think a lot of first-time founders are still meeting a whole list of investors and a portion of them are probably not a good fit. And so sometimes that power dynamic will go sideways because that investor's probably not meant for your cap table anyway. And if they get bristled by that kind of behavior, that's also indicative of whether that's a relationship that you want to have.

Exactly. And so maybe to summarize what you just said, Naseem Sayani, it's, I think you need to control the power dynamic.

Yeah, no, I agree with that. Absolutely. You also have female-led VCs on your cap table and you've, so you've interacted with kind of both versions of VCs. How, how is it different? Is it better? Has it, what's that experience been like?

I have to be honest. I wish I could say that it is unanimously always way better, but that hasn't been my experience. I will say one of our most difficult and hard to work with investors on our cap table happens to be a woman. And I think what's of course disappointing about that is that she gives us all a bad name. And I want to champion other women and I want other women to champion me. In our business, and she obviously is invested, is on our cap table, and I mean, hands down is the most difficult to work with. And, and other investors on our cap table see it too and are like, what's her deal? And I'm just grateful that I didn't give them a board seat. And it's been really discouraging. It's, it's really discouraging. And, and, and I think what I will say for a founder is, you know, once they invest, to some extent You know, you're hitched, right? And of course there's other ways to handle that if they were to really become a problem. But also the women's health community is quite small. And so I, I, I wonder how much investors realize that their reputation with how they interact with their portfolio companies is shared amongst the community of other female founders. And so, you know, founders talk.

Founders talk. Yeah, I know, I know y'all talk to each other.

Investors talk.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And so that's the other part that's like kind of mind-blowing of why you wouldn't think about that. But so, I mean, I, I wish one of the portfolio companies before I took capital from this fund had, I had talked to them and they had told me like, hey, just so you know, they won't do anything nefarious. It's not like they're doing anything terrible. But they will be the biggest thorn in your side. I wish I had the opportunity to make that call with that information. And so one of the things that I've done is to pass that knowledge on to any founder that reaches out to me asking for an intro to this specific fund. I say, if you'd like to know what it's like working with them, feel free to give me a call. And, you know, give that open door to just disclose that you're signing up for something, and I would like you to know what you're signing up for.

It's, it's too bad cuz it frustrates me also. And there are dynamics also sitting, you know, up and down the venture stack with the female-led funds as well, because the, the fundraising dynamics sit at the fund level as well. It's as hard to raise capital as a female fund manager as it is in some cases as it is to raise capital as a female founder. There is sometimes a, and I'm not justifying her behavior, I'm just adding color. Right. And then there are, there are, and I've, I know I have friends in the community who take on, you know, the, the more aggressive personality traits because it's how they believe they have to move in the ecosystem to be successful. And then because we're all trying to get to the next fund, there's a sense that every shot on goal has to hit and be brilliant. And so you end up not, you don't, you just don't bring your full self or you aren't as empathetic to the experience because you've, that sharpness you feel like has to be on everything. And it, it's, it kind of changes behavior in ways that I find really strange because your success, in my mind, this is the other version of it. Your success is my success. And so in order for me to be successful, I should be supporting every part of what you're doing. 'Cause when you win, I win. And, and I've also never wanted to take on those aggressive behaviors. It's not my normal style, but for some people it is and they operate that way. But it's, it's a very funny thing to watch in the ecosystem.

Well, and, and I mean, for this particular investor, you know, she really was a trailblazer in raising capital for women and investing in women. And, and for that, I have the utmost respect. Because I can only imagine what it was like at the time when she was creating this fund and wanting to invest only in female-led companies, how much fighting she had to do. I mean, I believe that she had to claw her way there. And again, for that, I have so much respect. And so I can only imagine that some of these personality traits and behaviors have been taken on because of that. And, and so I have understanding there. It's just a shame that it is then channeled towards the companies that she fought to be able to invest in.

Right, right. Exactly. Yeah. That it rolls forward the way that it does. Yeah.

I remember hearing before, honestly, as I was dreaming up Gabby, I, I really did a ton of R&D and one of the things I would do was, you know, I, I, I'd find someone I wanted to meet with, I'd take 'em out for coffee and at the end I'd always ask who, who else should I meet with? And ask them to at least introduce me to one other person. I remember I was meeting with someone and she had just left working for when, when coworking spaces were like all the rage. This is pre-pandemic. And, and so she was managing all of these coworking spaces across the country. And before that she had been working at a large real estate company and she said, you know, Caitlin, you're, So lucky to be blazing your trail and going down the career path that you're going at the time that you are doing it right now. Because when I was coming up in the industry, there was only one seat at the table for a woman, and every woman was fighting and clawing her way to get that one seat. And so you saying, who else I should, you know, who else should I meet? Who else should I talk to? Women would not have introduced you to someone else. Women did not want to help other women because they're fighting for that singular seat. But now there are more than one seat available at the table. And I'm a believer that we all as women go up together and we should all be supporting and edifying every woman. But I do still see some remnants of that. There's only one seat at the table for a woman. And, and so I just wonder if perhaps That is, that is a worldview that this particular investor has not only experienced, but is still, still feels like she's living.

Oh, absolutely. There is some real, we have come a long way on abundance, but there is definitely some scarcity still in the system. And, and we've started to build our own tables. And so it isn't, yes, it isn't the one seat, right? It's, we're just building our own and those tables are as good, if not in some cases better. Than the tables that have existed before. Because I grew up in, I grew up in consulting. I grew up in that world where you perceived that there was one partner seat and we were all racing towards that one partner seat. And the percentages of female partners were always very, very low. So my God, if you were gonna be the one female partner, like, who's going to be that one? Uh, and, but it just, it doesn't actually have to be that way. There could, there can be more. We just never, we weren't conditioned to think about it that way. But now It's, it's breaking down, which is great.

Something else that you said, Naseem Sayani, that I think is also really important, and one of our other investors who is an angel and has, has also been a VC, you know, what she shared with me was this pressure that's put on female fund managers or female partners. Essentially, I would say more or less the same pressure that's put on a female founder and the expectations of, you know, the, the incredibly in-depth diligence, all the questions that were asked that men aren't asked. Think about that same pressure as being put on a fe— like first-time female fund manager or first-time female partner, because they're essentially saying, we're taking a risk and a bet that you can invest as good as we do.

Mm-hmm.

And so of course that female partner is going to pass on that rigorous pressure and diligence to the female founders that they are then diligencing for investment. And so that's another kind of screwed up part of this process is that because that pressure's being put on the partner, that is then also being put on the founder. And now we hear of— we have this cycle that just keeps perpetuating.

Right, right. Yeah. It's just a vicious situation and it doesn't get better until we take a big step back and say, well, why are we putting this dynamic, these dynamics onto certain types of people when there's so much data to indicate that women are great business managers and actually the returns are higher and actually even the stock market data is better for companies led by female CEOs. Like we have enough evidence, uh, and, but we're not using it to make better decisions. And it doesn't, it's not meant to be a judgment that there aren't great male CEOs also, but we're just not listening to the data that would indicate that women are great CEOs also. And, and that, that's what has to break in my opinion, is we just have to listen to all of the data instead of Only listening to one part of it. And, and, and it's why even in women's health, we're trying, we're trying hard to get some of the data points around women's health into male investors' hands so they can be on stages talking about it. It can't just be Naseem Sayani and Caitlin talking about it everywhere. We need men talking about it cuz then we open up the whole category to a different conversation, which would change a lot of things. So are there, are there some lights in fundraising? Or things that are changing for better that, that you've seen or are seeing?

I don't, I don't know if I can say that, that there are. I mean, certainly I do see more female investors. I see more investors who are investing in women's health. That being said, I feel like there is still very much a like, oh, I made my one women's health investment.

So check the box. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

I, I don't know if I can say that I feel, I mean, female founders still get the least amount of capital. It hasn't changed since I started fundraising for the first time in, in 2019, 2020. I'd like to say that there are aspects that get easier with experience, like anything, but I don't think the general fundraising landscape has changed.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And that's, it's gonna take some time. We're all— it's— we're pushing a very, very big rock up a very, very steep hill. And so, and it's— at least there's more of us pushing now, but it's going to take a while. So where can everyone find you? Where can they find your business? What can everyone listening do to help? Sure.

So gabbi.com, G-A-B-B-I.com. You can find us on LinkedIn as well. And how you can help I mean, first would be go learn your risk, Gabby.com. And I would also say share it with a woman you love to learn her risk of breast cancer. It's Breast Cancer Awareness Month after all right now. So share, share Gabby with a woman you love. And then we are working on partnering with health systems across the country. So any, any health systems decision makers that you know, we would love an introduction.

And if you are a health system decision maker who's listening, you can find Caitlin's information in the show notes or reach out and we can make a connection. So absolutely all possible. If you could wrap us up with one big takeaway or must-know for female founders coming after you who are fundraising, what would you want them to know?

I would say invest in finding other female founders who are in the same industry, who are a couple steps ahead of you, a couple steps behind you, and exactly at your stage. And build those relationships within that spectrum of experience. You will lean on them so hard, and you will not regret being able to have a tribe of other female founders who have already done what you've done, and those who you can turn around and teach what you just experienced.

Yeah, no, it's fantastic advice. I, the community you can build around you as a founder is one of the strongest tools you have. And I tell, also tell founders all the time, like you get a term sheet in your hand, you have to have other founders look at it cuz you don't know what predatory looks like until it happens. And you, I would add having one or two friendly investor friends also in the, in the group. I agree. So that they can look at things for you.

Yep. And yep.

Point to the gotchas before you sign anything.

Yes.

Because you just don't know what you don't know until it happens.

Totally. No, that's a great call out around having a, at least, you know, one friendly investor as well that you can reach out to. And I would say one of the most rewarding parts of this journey has actually been that community that I've built and that I am now a part of. To, to have learned from these women and the openness to share and help each other is really incredible. And as someone, you know, I'm the only girl in my family. I have two younger brothers and I was never like a, a girly girl. I was a tomboy growing up. And so I never really had a lot of close girlfriends that I, I now have without question. More women in my life than I ever had men. And it's really incredible.

Yeah, no, it's incredible. I similar, I most of my career in rooms of men and now I spend most of my time in rooms of women and it's a completely different experience and hands down I enjoy it so much more.

Yes.

Uh, but I didn't realize how much fun it could be until I got here and I was like, this is Now when I'm in rooms with men, it feels a little awkward, but I agree. I'm not used to it anymore. It's really strange. I'm like, wait, I don't, my toolkit is not as sharp. Uh, and so I'm just like, ooh, I have to go. I'm, I'm gonna go over there. So, well, thank you, Caitlin. This has been great. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing so much, and I, I think this has been tremendous. So thank you for being here.

Thank you, Naseem Sayani. This was so fun, and I, I, hope that this can be a toolkit, like you said, for other female founders raising, uh, in the future.

Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to The Capital Flex. If today's episode hit home, share it with the founder you love and follow me on LinkedIn for more.